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If you have a bunch of coders, just scrape the data. Then turn your back on this greedy maw. We recently moved to Mattermost for the same reason. Not looking b

by taegee 1y ago

If you have a bunch of coders, just scrape the data. Then turn your back on this greedy maw. We recently moved to Mattermost for the same reason. Not looking back.

cskartikey 1y ago
this is what we're doing :)
- smartbit 1y ago
  Mattermost adheres to the same tactics as Salesforce: group calls in v10 only with paid tiers whereas free before. Have you considered alternatives? - Zulip - Matrix/Synapse and Element - Mostlymatter [1] without #user limits See discussions below in this HN thread. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1fp76f0/mattermost_paywalling_previously_free_features/?sort=old https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1fp76f0/matterm... [1] https://forum.mattermost.com/t/solved-is-there-any-limitations-on-user-count-mattermost-community-version/11580/9 https://forum.mattermost.com/t/solved-is-there-any-limitatio...
  - jeremy46231 1y ago
    We're selfhosting it! If it runs on our infrastructure, we can't be extorted like this again
    - itfossil 1y ago
      Microsoft shops from the 90s called in to say: "You're wrong" It just takes a bit more effort, that's all.
    - karaterobot 1y ago
      You'd think so, but I've been hosting MM for about 6 years, and it's definitely gotten more user- and admin-hostile in that time. They've restricted really vital improvements to paying customers (basic stuff, like having a functioning search), removed existing features (like video calls) and started shoving in more advertisements and nags to upgrade to a higher tier. The fact that they've ramped that stuff up so much in the last couple years does not bode well for the future, in my opinion. My installation isn't associated with a business, it's just a chat board for about 30 people, so there's no question of me being willing to pay $300 a month for the privilege. I'm sticking with Mattermost because there's no better option, and I've got hundreds of thousands of messages I don't want to lose. However, it isn't like they don't try to extort you just because they're better than Slack about it.
      - tabbott 1y ago
        For what it's worth, Zulip has a Mattermost data import tool, and communities are an important use case when we set product direction. While I can't promise we won't ever change our exact monetization strategy, we're not venture-funded, and thus are immune to the usual enshittification pressures. https://zulip.com/values/ https://zulip.com/values/ has some context. (I lead the Zulip project)
  - taneq 1y ago
    Is that using Jitsi or whatever it is? I thought that was third party? I actually set that up for work before realising that we all hate voice/video calls and would just prefer to type. :P
mattlutze 1y ago
Mattermost is great, we've used it at a few places and it's very flexible. Extensibility and integrations with learning management systems, as well as owning all your data, makes it sound like a great option in particular for an education-oriented organization. And I imaging the AWS or GCP costs for hosting it won't be as high as what Slack wants.
nickjj 1y ago
Slack lets you do a full export which even includes DMs depending on which plan you have. https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-Export-your-workspace-data https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-Export-your-worksp... When the org I was at moved away from Slack (due to costs) we used this method and wrote a little Python script to convert the main channels' JSON dumps into PDFs so we had a usable backup of channels.
- misiek08 1y ago
  Please do not include PDF and usable in one sentence. Setting up some simple Postgres with sonic for fuzzy search would be _usable_, but PDF is like migrating from Slack to Teams.
  - boringg 1y ago
    PDF is the worse, it has its use-cases but is so painful to use programatically.
    - HumanOstrich 1y ago
      I agree, but I don't think they were using the PDFs programmatically.
  - nickjj 1y ago
    In this case we didn't need a long term solution for searchable data on Slack. We did the migration in stages, basically this: - Provide access to Teams - Create all of the new teams / channels there - Make Slack read-only but still keep the lights on - Allow folks to search and reference historic data as needed with Slack - Ensure everyone was moved over to Teams and felt ok enough using it - Remove access to Slack - Perform Slack export / PDF creation of important channels - Attach Slack PDFs to important Teams channels - Cancel Slack subscription In the end, most people never even needed to use the PDFs because they got everything they needed out of Slack before access was removed, but they are there for peace of mind and a last resort. We also took this as an opportunity to stop using chat as a source of truth for long lived information. Anything that should be stored long term made its way somewhere else (Jira, Confluence, etc.).
taneq 1y ago
Yeah, my first thought was Mattermost, it’s pretty straightforward to set up and then your data’s nobody’s hostage.
davedx 1y ago
Zulip is awesome too. On prem.
- elevation 1y ago
  What do you like about Zulip? Any drawbacks that you tolerate? Considering it for on-prem but would love to have some real-world feedback.
  - davedx 1y ago
    Used it for about 2 years at a growing startup. What I liked: * Threads are way better than in Slack. They're top level instead of just a bolted on afterthought. This means all your various conversations scale way better and are way easier to find than in Slack. I can't overstate this enough, it's a killer feature and genuinely improves the overall organisation of your communications * Font size is just slightly smaller. My eyesight isn't what it used to be, but I still think they get the balance of legibility and information density spot on, whereas Slack feels cartoony in comparison. * Search felt a little better, I can't exactly put my finger on why or how, just that finding things in Slack always feels comparable to the iOS Mail search feature: very basic. Drawbacks: * There are less out of the box integrations I think.
lsaferite 1y ago
If you try to use the Slack APIs to scrape the data you will *quickly* run face-first into the insanely restrictive rate limiting they recently enacted to combat their customers using AI tools they aren't providing and able to monetize. That being said, we were able to get full data exports in the past when we were merging two companies into a single slack instance. YMMV

by taegee 1y ago

If you have a bunch of coders, just scrape the data. Then turn your back on this greedy maw. We recently moved to Mattermost for the same reason. Not looking back.

cskartikey 1y ago

this is what we're doing :)

smartbit 1y ago
Mattermost adheres to the same tactics as Salesforce: group calls in v10 only with paid tiers whereas free before. Have you considered alternatives? - Zulip - Matrix/Synapse and Element - Mostlymatter [1] without #user limits See discussions below in this HN thread. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1fp76f0/mattermost_paywalling_previously_free_features/?sort=old https://old.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1fp76f0/matterm... [1] https://forum.mattermost.com/t/solved-is-there-any-limitations-on-user-count-mattermost-community-version/11580/9 https://forum.mattermost.com/t/solved-is-there-any-limitatio...
- jeremy46231 1y ago
  We're selfhosting it! If it runs on our infrastructure, we can't be extorted like this again
  - itfossil 1y ago
    Microsoft shops from the 90s called in to say: "You're wrong" It just takes a bit more effort, that's all.
  - karaterobot 1y ago
    You'd think so, but I've been hosting MM for about 6 years, and it's definitely gotten more user- and admin-hostile in that time. They've restricted really vital improvements to paying customers (basic stuff, like having a functioning search), removed existing features (like video calls) and started shoving in more advertisements and nags to upgrade to a higher tier. The fact that they've ramped that stuff up so much in the last couple years does not bode well for the future, in my opinion. My installation isn't associated with a business, it's just a chat board for about 30 people, so there's no question of me being willing to pay $300 a month for the privilege. I'm sticking with Mattermost because there's no better option, and I've got hundreds of thousands of messages I don't want to lose. However, it isn't like they don't try to extort you just because they're better than Slack about it.
    - tabbott 1y ago
      For what it's worth, Zulip has a Mattermost data import tool, and communities are an important use case when we set product direction. While I can't promise we won't ever change our exact monetization strategy, we're not venture-funded, and thus are immune to the usual enshittification pressures. https://zulip.com/values/ https://zulip.com/values/ has some context. (I lead the Zulip project)
- taneq 1y ago
  Is that using Jitsi or whatever it is? I thought that was third party? I actually set that up for work before realising that we all hate voice/video calls and would just prefer to type. :P

mattlutze 1y ago

Mattermost is great, we've used it at a few places and it's very flexible. Extensibility and integrations with learning management systems, as well as owning all your data, makes it sound like a great option in particular for an education-oriented organization. And I imaging the AWS or GCP costs for hosting it won't be as high as what Slack wants.

nickjj 1y ago

Slack lets you do a full export which even includes DMs depending on which plan you have. https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-Export-your-workspace-data https://slack.com/help/articles/201658943-Export-your-worksp... When the org I was at moved away from Slack (due to costs) we used this method and wrote a little Python script to convert the main channels' JSON dumps into PDFs so we had a usable backup of channels.

misiek08 1y ago
Please do not include PDF and usable in one sentence. Setting up some simple Postgres with sonic for fuzzy search would be _usable_, but PDF is like migrating from Slack to Teams.
- boringg 1y ago
  PDF is the worse, it has its use-cases but is so painful to use programatically.
  - HumanOstrich 1y ago
    I agree, but I don't think they were using the PDFs programmatically.
- nickjj 1y ago
  In this case we didn't need a long term solution for searchable data on Slack. We did the migration in stages, basically this: - Provide access to Teams - Create all of the new teams / channels there - Make Slack read-only but still keep the lights on - Allow folks to search and reference historic data as needed with Slack - Ensure everyone was moved over to Teams and felt ok enough using it - Remove access to Slack - Perform Slack export / PDF creation of important channels - Attach Slack PDFs to important Teams channels - Cancel Slack subscription In the end, most people never even needed to use the PDFs because they got everything they needed out of Slack before access was removed, but they are there for peace of mind and a last resort. We also took this as an opportunity to stop using chat as a source of truth for long lived information. Anything that should be stored long term made its way somewhere else (Jira, Confluence, etc.).

taneq 1y ago

Yeah, my first thought was Mattermost, it’s pretty straightforward to set up and then your data’s nobody’s hostage.

davedx 1y ago

Zulip is awesome too. On prem.

elevation 1y ago
What do you like about Zulip? Any drawbacks that you tolerate? Considering it for on-prem but would love to have some real-world feedback.
- davedx 1y ago
  Used it for about 2 years at a growing startup. What I liked: * Threads are way better than in Slack. They're top level instead of just a bolted on afterthought. This means all your various conversations scale way better and are way easier to find than in Slack. I can't overstate this enough, it's a killer feature and genuinely improves the overall organisation of your communications * Font size is just slightly smaller. My eyesight isn't what it used to be, but I still think they get the balance of legibility and information density spot on, whereas Slack feels cartoony in comparison. * Search felt a little better, I can't exactly put my finger on why or how, just that finding things in Slack always feels comparable to the iOS Mail search feature: very basic. Drawbacks: * There are less out of the box integrations I think.

lsaferite 1y ago

If you try to use the Slack APIs to scrape the data you will *quickly* run face-first into the insanely restrictive rate limiting they recently enacted to combat their customers using AI tools they aren't providing and able to monetize. That being said, we were able to get full data exports in the past when we were merging two companies into a single slack instance. YMMV